This is made from semolina, with a sweet lemony syrup. I have had versions with coconut as well and I am sure it had a different name, but I can’t recall what it might be. This uses something called semnah (or samne or samnah or just samn depending on where you encounter it) which is either clarified butter (ghee) or vegetable oils. We used melted unsalted butter. The recipe posted also calls for caster sugar, but we used regular white granulated sugar.
The recipe posted here is from the book Lebanese Cooking by Susan Ward. It’s not a bad book, since it has many of the recipes that we were looking for, but I’d recommend reading through the recipes before you try it, and if you have any experience with these foods, adjusting to your particular taste. For example - for Basboosa, she says don’t get it too soggy, and then makes it with less semnah than traditionally used. We like it soaking in syrup and rich in butter.
Recipe (more or less):
INGREDIENTS:
- 225 g caster sugar
- 225 g semolina
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 350 ml yoghurt
- 5 -6 tbsp semnah (or melted butter)
SYRUP
- 225 g caster sugar
- 4 tbsp fresh lime juice (ok…so the recipe probaby asked for lemon juice
) - few drops of orange blossom water (rose water would be a good alternative)
Put all syrup ingredients in pan with about 1/2 cup water and let boil until consistency of golden syrup
METHOD:
1. Mix caster sugar, semolina and baking soda together
2. Add yoghurt, mix well
3. Add melted butter
4. Bake for 15 minutes in a 350°F oven
5. Set whole blanched almonds onto top of cake (or sprinkle sliced almonds like we did!)
6. Bake for 30 minutes until golden
7. Cool cake for 10 minutes, cut into squares or diamonds
8. Pour syrup all over cake
Variation: Add some shredded coconut to the mix!
Basboosa always reminds of a cake Lilandra made once for Mother’s Day. Some old old cake recipe for mothers, that she got off some list she was a part of years ago, that called for semolina. We didn’t have semolina. Want to know what she used? Cream of Wheat. She read the ingredients and figured it was a decent enough match. We didn’t really know any better. It was not a bad cake and somewhat similar to this - it was very dense, moist and über-sweet.
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